COMMUNIST
PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)
CENTRAL
COMMITTEE
Press Release
2 October 2016
Demand
a stop to the war-mongering, chauvinism and aggression
by the expansionist Hindu-fascist Modi regime against
Pakistan!
Oppose
state terror against the Kashmiri people!
Support
the just struggle of the Kashmiri nation for Azadi!
The
pre-dawn attack of 18 September on an Indian Army base at Uri in
Jammu and Kashmir left 17 army jawans dead and at least 20 injured,
two of whom died later. This is the single biggest loss suffered by
the Indian Army in Kashmir in the recent years. Following this, a
relentless anti-Pakistan jingoistic chorus was drummed-up by all
ruling-class parties led by the Hindutva fascist BJP/Sangh Parivar as
an expression of virulent Indian expansionism. Opposition parties
vied with one another to look more ‘nationalist’ than the rest in
making anti-Pakistan statements and demanding ‘decisive action’.
Allegations against Modi government for its purported failure to take
“tough action” and “teach Pakistan a lesson” from the
opposition and the corporate media came thick and fast. Modi
government and the RSS, however, needed no prompting to unleash a
barrage of tirade targeting Pakistan in the wake of the Uri attack,
terming it a “sponsor of terrorism”, “a terrorist state”,
“epicentre of global terrorism” and what not.
Amidst
the growing cacophony of big-nation chauvinism by the Indian ruling
classes and a similar jingoistic response by the rulers of Pakistan,
an Indian Army spokesperson (DGMO, J&K) declared in a press
conference in New Delhi that the Army successfully carried out
“surgical strike” across the Line of Control (LoC) on 28
September. It claimed to have destroyed “terror infrastructure”
such as “terrorist launch-pads” and gunned down several
“terrorists”. Only a few days before this, the army had made the
questionable claim of shooting down around ten ‘terrorists’ who
were allegedly trying to cross the LoC, but could furnished no
evidence to back up its claim. In case of the so-called ‘surgical
strike’ too, serious questions have been raised about the veracity
of the claim from various quarters domestically and internationally.
Journalists who have visited the LoC on PoK side and talked to the
local residents could not find any evidence of any ‘surgical
strike’ by the Indian armed forces. The pressure on the Indian
government is now growing to furnish credible evidence of it – a
demand it has stubbornly refused so far.
Indeed,
the manner in which the government went about advertising the
‘surgical strike’ and later stonewalled the call for concrete
evidence provide enough grounds to question the claim. This ‘surgical
strike’ has much similarity with the modus-operandi of the
Modi government after the Indian Army suffered a large number of
casualties in an attack SS Khaplang-led NSCN in Manipur last year.
Then too, it publicly claimed that the Army had carried out a strike
inside Myanmar in ‘hot pursuit’ of Naga guerrillas and killed
several of them, a claim which remains unsubstantiated and was firmly
rebutted by that organisation and the Myanmar government. The recent
claim of ‘surgical strike’ too appears to be motivated more by
political reasons than military requirements. It is mainly aimed at
assuaging the domestic Hindutva constituency of BJP/Sangh Parivar and
put the opposition parties on the defensive. But the very act of
making such claims amply demonstrates that while remaining extremely
touchy about the “unity and integrity” of “Bharat Mata”, Modi
government has no compunctions in violating the sovereignty and
territorial integrity of other countries and nations including our
neighbours, if it is in the interest of the ruling classes and their
imperialist masters, particularly US imperialism. In fact, aggression
and military intervention against our neighbours has always been the
policy of the expansionist Indian rulers and remains an integral part
of the Brahmanical Hindu fascist agenda of establishing an integrated
‘Hindu Rashtra’ in South Asia. BJP spokespersons have announced
in the past that the party is committed to establish ‘Akhand
Bharat’ through peaceful means. It is this expansionist policy of
the Indian ruling classes that is responsible for pushing the country
into the brink of the present crisis.
But
even if the question whether or not the ‘surgical strike’
actually took place is set aside, it can be said with some certainly
that the decision to make this claim publicly was taken by Modi
government with the objective of salvaging its tattered image after
the bankruptcy of its Kashmir policy got thoroughly exposed
domestically and internationally. Unable to respond to the ongoing
historic and unprecedented mass upsurge of Kashmir in any other way
than by military force (which has taken the lives of nearly a hundred
Kashmiris and injured more than 20,000 so far), Modi government
desperately needed a pretext to divert the world’s attention from
the atrocities committed by the Indian occupation forces in Kashmir.
The government wanted to change its image of the perpetrator of state
terrorism in Kashmir to a victim of “state-sponsored cross-border
terrorism”. It has found such a pretext In the Uri attack,.
On
the other hand, it was looking for an opportunity to channelise the
growing discontent of the masses of the country harmlessly towards a
foreign ‘enemy’. The Sangh Parvar and BJP have been working in a
planned manner since the last parliamentary elections to win over the
Backward Castes and the Dalits to its side in order to consolidate
its social base and to minimise the resistance to its reactionary
anti-people steps. Using the state machinery, Modi-led BJP has
introduced several programmes for workers, peasants, BCs, Dalits,
Adivasis, women and the poorest of the poor with much fanfare. But
‘Modinomics’ has utterly failed to assuage the growing social
crises and the resulting discontent. It has completely failed to
bring any ‘acche din’ to the vast majority of the country’s
people. ‘Acche din’ has remained the privilege of only the
imperialists and a miniscule minority of the populace – big
capitalists, big landlords, ruling-class politicians, top bureaucrats
and government functionaries, etc. During more than two years of
rule, Modi government has proved its utter inability to resolve any
of the burning economic, political and social issues of the masses
and to address their discontent. This discontent is getting expressed
through various mass movements by workers, peasants, BCs, Dalits,
Adivasis, students, employees, religious minorities and oppressed
nationalities, etc., among which the present upsurge in Kashmir is
the most militant and extensive one.
Another
factor behind the aggressive posturing of the Modi government towards
Pakistan is the upcoming assembly elections. Most important for BJP
is the UP elections, followed by states like Punjab and Gujarat where
the fate of its governments/alliance-governments are at stake. The
stakes have become even higher after its abject failure in the
recently concluded assembly elections in Bengal, Keralam, Tamil Nadu
and Puducherry (it could achieve a consolation win only in Asom
mainly due to the 15 years of Congress misrule). BJP/Sangh Parivar is
therefore desperately drumming up anti-Pakistan pseudo-nationalist
rhetoric to serve its own vested interests before the elections.
Modi
government has thus used the Uri attack mainly to serve these
objectives. Its response to Uri attack along with its diplomatic
efforts to ‘isolate’ Pakistan internationally is in conformity
with the same integrated policy of the Indian ruling classes –
national oppression towards Kashmir and expansionism towards the
neighbouring countries. Though this policy has been pursued by each
and every government since 1947, it has found a more vicious, cruel
and brazen expression during the present NDA government at the hands
of Brahmanical Hindu fascist BJP. Not surprisingly, all the
parliamentary parties including the revisionist CPI(M) and CPI are
speaking in a voice similar to BJP and are standing behind the
communal fascist Modi-Amit Shah-Mohan Bhagavat-Rajnath-Parikkar gang,
as they all represent the same Indian ruling-class interests.
Not
remaining content with the claim of ‘surgical strike’, Modi
government has followed it up with a virulent chorus of big
nation-chauvinism and is trying to build up war hysteria in the
country. It has created an atmosphere of war by deploying additional
army and paramilitary forces at the border, beginning cross-border
firing and bombardment, ordering the residents of the international
border to vacate their homes, issuing ‘high alert’ in the
bordering states and acting on dubious claims of the ‘sighting’
of ‘terrorists’ in Mumbai, etc. It has scuttled the SAARC summit
by putting pressure on a number of South Asian countries, threatened
to downgrade the economic and diplomatic ties and to abrogate the
long-standing water-sharing treaty with Pakistan, and are taking
similar other steps. At the same time, Modi government has
intensified diplomatic efforts to gain international support for its
occupation and repression in Kashmir, for its aggression towards
Pakistan in the name of ‘global war on terror’ and for
‘isolating’ it internationally by primarily lobbying with the US
government.
The
Pakistani government led by Nawaz Sharif, on the other hand, has
stepped up its anti-India rhetoric and jingoism mainly as a response
to the prevailing domestic situation in that country. The Pakistani
ruling classes are facing mass anger due to the deepening
economic-political crises and intensifying social contradictions in
the country. The pro-imperialist economic and strategic policies
pursued by Nawaz Sharif government, the ongoing military operations
against national minorities and Islamic forces, its reluctance in
supporting the Kashmir liberation movement in the past, etc., are
resulting in serious unrest among the masses of Pakistan. In this
backdrop, the main ruling-class parties of the country which hardly
come together on any issue, have got united to give India a “fitting
reply” and are urging the masses to unite behind the government.
Pakistan has also heightened its military preparedness and is using
national-chauvinist language to build up a war atmosphere.
While
Pakistani rulers are highlighting the Kashmir issue, pledging all
support to it and are raising India’s oppressive role in
international platforms, the Indian rulers, in a bid to outdo their
opponent, have started to raise the issue of Balochistan’s national
liberation movement. Ruling classes of each country are claiming
their support for the national liberation movements of the opponent,
while at the same time subjugating the oppressed nationalities and
crushing the just national liberation movements within their own
boundaries. This clearly shows the opportunism and bankruptcy of the
ruling classes of both the countries. They are raising the issue of
national oppression and right to self-determination of oppressed
nationalities only to serve their own class interests and of the
imperialist powers and not out of true solidarity with the struggling
nations and peoples. The ruling classes of Pakistan or India are not,
and can never be, the genuine, trusted and reliable allies of the
people of Kashmir or Balochistan in their fight for national
liberation.
At
the root of this stand-off between the ruling classes of India and
Pakistan over Kashmir lies the clash of their economic and strategic
interests. As compradors to imperialism, they also represent the
interests of different imperialist powers backing them. The US,
Britain and EU have much at stake economically and militarily in both
the South Asian countries. India is an extremely important market for
US imperialism particularly at a time when it is reeling under a
severe economic and financial crisis. So is the necessity to open up
the Indian economy further for unrestrained neo-colonial plunder and
exploitation by strengthening its stranglehold over India. Moreover,
it considers India as an important outpost to contain the growing
influence of its rivals Russia and China in Asia and China in
Asia-Pacific region, particularly when Pakistan’s
economic-diplomatic-military ties with China and Russia is deepening.
In
the context of the growing worldwide imperialist contention between
the US and its allies on the one hand and Russia, China and Iran on
the other (manifesting most glaringly at present in the contention
for Syria and Ukraine), the US wants India to be firmly on its side.
Russia’s close relations with some former Soviet republics of
Central Asia and China’s growing economic ties with them is another
cause of concern for the US. The Indian government is also an
important US ally in its ‘global war on terror’. The US and its
imperialist allies are therefore encouraging and utilising the
big-power ambition of the Indian ruling classes and satisfying it to
a limited extent to ensure closer integration of the Indian economy
with the imperialist world market.
At
the same time, however, the US also wants Pakistan to be with it for
defending its economic and strategic interests in South, Central and
West Asia, for its Afghan War and to counter Russia and China. Hence,
it is not likely that the US and its allies will concede to Indian
government’s demand of isolating Pakistan internationally and
stopping the economic, diplomatic and military ‘aid/assistance’
to it. Indian government’s efforts to isolate Pakistan
internationally to make it yield and compel it to stop supporting the
Kashmir movement will not work. The strategic support of the
imperialist powers to their Indian and Pakistan compradors will
remain relatively unaltered in the short term, though the extent and
level of this support may undergo some tactical shifts according to
the changes in the international politics and balance of forces.
Since behind the clash of interests between the comprador rulers of
the two countries lie the contention between the imperialist powers,
the tension and mutual acrimony between the two countries will
continue and may even intensify with the intensification of the
fundamental contradictions of the world.
Given
this context, it is quite clear that till the time the Indian ruling
classes persist in suppressing the birthright of the Kashmiri people,
continue their communal fascist policies towards the Muslims and
maintain their interference in the internal affairs of the South
Asian countries, particularly Pakistan, it is not possible for them
to stop attacks like Uri. Nor is it possible for the Pakistani ruling
classes to stop the oppressed peoples and nations from carrying out
militant resistance against subjugation and oppression. As long as
the comprador ruling classes of the two countries continue to yield
to the strategic and economic interests of imperialism, they will
never be able to restrain the people from rebellion, armed or
unarmed.
The
CC, CPI(Maoist) appeals to the people of India to see through the
national-chauvinist machinations of the Indian ruling classes being
articulated through the Modi government and the parliamentary parties
against Pakistan. The people of India and Pakistan have nothing to
gain from a military escalation or war between the two countries, but
have much to lose due to it. The huge financial burden of large-scale
military mobilization at the border will have to be borne by the
people of the two countries depending on the intensity and extent of
this deployment. We therefore call upon the people to oppose any kind
of expansionist intervention by the Indian government against PoK and
Pakistan, be it through ‘surgical strikes’, military aggression
and economic or diplomatic means. The CC reiterates its unequivocal
support to the Kashmiri people’s right to self-determination
including secession from India and urges the people of India to
resolutely defend this right of the fighting Kashmiri people. Let us
declare to the people of Kashmir, “You are not alone!” Oppose the
Indian occupation of Kashmir and continued state terrorism by the
Indian armed forces! Support the struggle of the Kashmiri nation for
Azadi! Demand a stop to the war-mongering, chauvinism and
aggression against Pakistan by the Indian government led by the
Hindutva fascists to further Indian expansionism! Demand a stop to
the threats and intimidation of Pakistani artists and citizens in
India! ‘No’ to any type of war with Pakistan!
(Abhay)
Spokesperson
Central
Committee
CPI(Maoist)
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